Trust in emergency evacuation robots

Would you trust a robot to lead you to safety in an emergency? What design would best attract your attention in a smoke-filled environment? How should the robot behave to best increase your trust? To answer these questions, we have created a three dimensional environment to simulate an emergency and determine to what degree an individual will follow a robot to a variety of exits. Survey feedback and quantitative scenario results were gathered on two different robot designs. Fifteen volunteers completed a total of seven scenarios each: one without a robot and one with each robot pointing to each of three exits in the environment. Robots were followed by each volunteer in at least two scenarios. One-third of all volunteers followed the robot in each robot-guided scenario.